


A Crippling Blow

by altilis



Series: Building Bridges [1]
Category: Thor (2011)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Future, Community: kink_bingo, Community: norsekink, Corporal Punishment, Gen, Humiliation, Post-Movie(s), Punishment, Whipping
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-06-30
Updated: 2011-06-30
Packaged: 2017-10-20 22:12:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,468
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/217615
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/altilis/pseuds/altilis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternative ending to the movie. Loki doesn't have the chance to let go and escape the consequences for what he's done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Crippling Blow

**Author's Note:**

> Super thanks to [](http://cero-ate.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**cero_ate**](http://cero-ate.dreamwidth.org/) and [](http://sullacat.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**sullacat**](http://sullacat.dreamwidth.org/) for the hand-holding and instant beta-ing - this would have stayed a passing dream otherwise! Title from the song by The Killers because - yeah, titles.

He hesitates while Thor smashes the bridge, and then everything is white with the explosion. He's falling and screaming until Thor grabs his arm and he stops abruptly, and he can see the last remnants of Heimdall's observatory disappear into the starry abyss below. Thor jerks him up onto the remnants of the Bifrost, and Loki almost feels thankful – until he sees Odin there with them.

The All-father backhands him across the face hard enough that Loki stumbles back into Thor, clutching his jaw. When he tries to push off Thor's chest, Thor doesn't let him go; his hands are like vices on Loki's arms.

"To court," Odin orders as he mounts Sleipnir. The beast stares at Loki and snorts in agitation. These circumstances test the stallion's loyalty, but Loki shakes his head, which calms Sleipnir before he takes off for the palace with Odin.

"Come, brother," Thor says, more weary than anything else. One hand firm around Loki's waist, the other hand around Mjölnir's handle, Thor doesn't give him chance for escape as they fly after Odin towards the great golden hall. Not that he could try, anyway—the fight and Thor's lightning blast have exhausted him, as they always have.

  
There are other sorcerers waiting by the throne when Thor drags him up the great steps. A mob of confused and sleepy spectators watches, woken by the exploding Bifrost. Loki can feel their stares as he's man-handled before Odin, and Thor steps back, leaving him alone. He throws a glare over his shoulder while Odin exhausts his platitudes and raises his staff.

Loki takes a breath before the pain hits him from all sides. All he can hear is his own screaming as the magic is siphoned from his veins. Loki struggles to keep it through sheer will, but it leeches out at every pore and with his very breath. His knees hit the ground, and he claws at his chest, trying to take off the armor that feels too hot and heavy now, until he finally collapses into a cold, shuddering heap on the smooth black marble of the hall.

His own rasping breath echoes with the ringing in his ears; he doesn't see or hear Thor until the man is picking him up off the ground. Thor holds him gingerly, like some delicate woman, and Loki wants to punch him for it, but he finds he is too weak for even that. His head lolls back, eyes staring at the ceiling, and Odin's voice sounds distant as he says, "Take him to the dungeons."

Thor takes them there, Loki supposes. He doesn't actually pay attention until he's dropped onto a less-than-comfortable cot in the middle of a stony, white cell. Thor looks down at him for a moment, and Loki stares back, and then Thor begins to pull at his armor, unhooking what he can and bending the rest. Each piece drops with an off-key clatter that echoes off the walls.

"How does it feel?" Thor asks, after he's dismantled both arm guards.

Loki laughs, except in his fatigue it sounds more like a cough. He feels hollow, empty, and lifeless, parched and thirsty but also nauseous; everything feels too heavy and too hot. "Like I am the living dead," he whispers. "It would be better if you killed me, Thor."

He doesn't. Thor just takes off Loki's chest plate and—with some gentle maneuvering—his back plate, before leaving him there to contemplate his own suddenly powerless existence.

\--

They leave him alone for an entire day, or at least that's what it seems like. Loki slips in and out of consciousness, his body trying to repair itself without its closest ally. It'll be slow going: Loki can feel bruises all along his chest, against his arms, along his cheek where Odin struck him.

By the time he pools enough energy to sit up, the armor has been removed, leaving the cell bare once again. Slowly, he pulls and tugs at the fastenings of his shirt, wincing as he moves, before managing to chuck the shirt to the ground. His cape, now a giant blanket when it is unattached to the chest plate, still spreads over the cot, and Loki curls up on it in a vain attempt for comfort. Once his eyes close, he falls into a fitful sleep again, only broken by a brief and silent visit from an Einherjar guard, who drops off a single goblet of drink and a plate of stale bread and salted pork.

Less than two days ago, he had sat at the High Table and enjoyed rich seafood and toast with lingonberries, washed down with a dark lager from the royal cellars. It makes the light beer harder to swallow.

After eating as much as he can without feeling nauseous, which leaves the goblet half-full and most of the plate untouched, Loki sleeps again, trying not to dwell on how he can feel full and hollow at the same time.

\--

Thor shakes him awake with a large hand at his shoulder. "Loki," he says quietly, "You have been summoned."

Loki blinks at him, still exhausted, and then closes his eyes again, fully intending to go back to sleep.

Thor shakes his shoulder again. " _Loki_."

"I have no reason to go," Loki murmurs.

"This may be, but I have been ordered to bring you, whether it be on your feet or over my shoulder." At this, Loki has to fight down the urge to punch Thor again, and with a deep breath he manages to push himself up. For all his work, though, Thor's hands are there, helping and only mildly hurting (avoiding the bruises, how kind of him) until he's on his feet. Yet he's still so weak, wobbling and listing as they take the stairs, that Thor has to take his arm like a court maiden. He enters the throne room like that, hanging off of Thor, and he flushes with shame when he realizes the entire court has assembled, and all of them stare at their entrance.

He can see at the center of the marble floor a familiar apparatus of two widely-spaced pillars with free-hanging chains, and a ring of Einherjar and older mages creates a wide space between it and the thick crowd. A sickening chill sinks into Loki's stomach, forcing him to lean even more heavily on Thor, and he's not sure if the din in his ears is his own mind or the increased chatter of the people.

Thor walks forward, and Loki has no choice but to follow his lead, unwilling to be dragged to his punishment. A thousand pairs of eyes bore holes in his neck, scrutinizing his weakness and half-nudity, and while Loki attempts to ignore them and stare at the All-father, regal and indifferent, his cheeks still burn from the attention.

Soon, they stop by the pillars. Thor holds him up by the waist as the chains lift and wrap around his wrists, then jerk him forward so his arms are spread above his shoulders and the chains are taut. Behind him, Thor's footsteps recede, and in front of him, he sees Odin stand, Gungnir in hand. The butt of the spear taps the ground with a deep boom, and the court quiets.

"Loki," he says, and Loki is painfully aware of the surname omission, "You have facilitated war between Jotunheim and Asgard, twice invited enemies to this realm, conspired to murder a prince of Asgard and warriors of the court, and abused the powers of the Bifrost to initiate genocide against the Jotunns." Then, for a brief moment, Odin's expression falters into something sad and disappointed. "Have you anything to say for these acts?"

The chains that support Loki have already begun to dig into his wrists, promising bruises that will add to his trophies for this day. He stares at Odin, even though there are fairer faces to look at here—his mother, Sif, even the warriors three near the edge of the crowd—but his words are not for them. "I have only followed in the footsteps of my father," he manages to croak out, and the words send the crowd into a muttered frenzy again.

Gungnir strikes the floor again, grabbing the courts attention once more, and Odin speaks. "Very well. For your punishment, you shall be whipped, with one lash for each life that has been taken; you shall be stripped of all of your titles; and you shall be bound to Thor, who has won victory over you despite the wrongs you have done unto him."

"The wrongs that I--?" His voice disappears in the rising crowd noise. He can barely stand the hypocrisy in all of this, and his anger seeks out magic and fire that are no longer there, leaving a dull tingle at his fingertips. He wasn't the one that took Thor's powers, and if anyone had initiated these events, surely it was Odin himself, right down to the day he abducted Loki from Jotunheim.

But Odin is king, and Loki, now, is no one.

A hand falls onto Loki's shoulder and he jumps, unaware of someone approaching him. "I am sorry, brother, for what I must do," Thor says to him quietly before stepping back again, each step growing louder as the crowd fixes silent attention on them both. He stops too soon, maybe ten paces away and too soon to rejoin the crowd, but Loki's too distracted to try to look over his shoulder: Tyr has stepped out from the crowd, and a long white scroll unfurls from his hand to the floor, and rolls for a few feet before it ends. He has never hated the god of war and justice so much.

"Tarben Kjeldsen, Einherjar," Tyr announces, and the whip strikes heavy between his shoulder blades. Loki's fingernails dig into his palms as his entire body tenses, but he doesn't scream.

"Erlen Markusson, Einherjar," Tyr continues, and the lash lands lower on his back, and still Loki refuses to cry out—for himself, not for the crowds.

It continues like that, Tyr calling out names and Thor giving Loki the lash, and the crowd stares. They watch without a look of mercy or empathy, none that Loki can see, and he tries not to think of those who might relish this sight. Freyja, who he has stolen from; Heimdall, who he has agitated more times than the years he's lived; Tyr himself, who occasionally looks up from the list with an unreadable expression.

Yet when his gaze slides over to those he knows well, those he honestly respects (still), he can barely catch their eyes before he glances away again, sickened by what they must think of him. Volstagg looks smug but conflicted; Fandral bites his lip and fidgets with the sword at his side; Hogun looks as calm as always, but he's looking past Loki. Sif looks tense in that battle-hardened way she adopts when she's distressed, and she watches him and Thor (of course). Then Frigga, Mother...

He can't look at her face. All he can see are her hands, nervously wringing in front of her, like they always did when Thor and Loki had their greater conflicts, either with each other or against a common enemy. He's brought this disquiet on her again, as much as he's tried to keep her separate—and even then, she had suffered under his plans.

His skin feels hot from the impact of the whip, constant in attack but varied in position, but somewhere in the middle of the scroll it finally breaks skin, and Loki's cry echoes against the high ceiling of the hall. Neither Tyr nor Thor falter, though, and Loki knows it's just the first of many.

Finally, when Loki's stamina has been drained so that all that holds him up are the chains and he can feel the blood dripping down his back, the list is finished, the scroll disappears, and Tyr returns to the crowd. The chains dissolve, too, and Loki collapses to his knees and barely catches himself on his hands, saving his face from the marble.

Odin rises from the throne again, and this time descends from the dais to stand a few paces in front of where Loki kneels. He feels choked by the aura the All-father gives off, or maybe that is just the parched state of his throat.

"Loki," Odin begins, lifting a hand, "I strip from you your titles: Prince of Asgard, First Sorcerer, and...son of Odin."

Despite his wounds, Loki's conscious enough to hear the pause in Odin's words, and he almost feels satisfied, despite being disowned in front of hundreds. Let them think what they will of him, shaking and bloodied. He wonders if any of them realize their hand in making this, how the sum of their tiny exclusions through the millennia have led to this.

Gungnir strikes the ground again, but it sounds dull and unimportant now, since Loki occupies himself with not collapsing. "Thor," Odin says, and Loki hears Thor's boots approach. "I give to you Loki's life and freedom, until such a time as he is worthy to be a true citizen of Asgard once more."

Worthy. Loki breathes out a laugh, but the beginnings of his delirious humor dies when silver bands form and tighten around his wrist, followed by cold, heavy metal that snakes around his throat. Not even a thrall, he realizes now, but a common slave, shackled like a prisoner even in the open air of the court. Loki stares at the bands, unable to muster the strength or will to claw at them.

Thor steps forward. "Father—"

"It is not to be returned until that time." Odin interrupts before Thor can protest any further, and when he turns, the edge of his cape sliding across the tile, the crowd breaks into a final round of chatter. They all press towards the exits – it must be time for lunch, Loki thinks grimly.

Thor sighs and kneels in front of Loki. "Brother, we must get you to the Healing Room," he says and gently takes Loki's arms to help him stand. Loki has to bite his lip, already raw and bloody in its own right, as the skin of his back shifts. As he watches the crowd disperse, all their eyes turned from him, he wonders how he'll manage from here to the Healing Room—until Thor bends down and lifts him up in a fireman's carry, giving him no choice in the matter.

Loki's too tired to elbow him in the face or care about the points and snickering from the younger Aesir of the crowd, but he thinks of horrible things to do to them, and that soothes him for now.

**Author's Note:**

> Also at [Dreamwidth](http://altilis.dreamwidth.org/23890.html).


End file.
